Her traitorous heart seemed to skip a beat at the way his gaze quickly swept down the length of her, taking in her appearance. His whiskey-colored eyes spoke volumes once they reached hers again, letting her know he noticed that the brazen woman who’d spent the night in his bed had been carefully put away, and they were back to being friends and colleagues.
Friends and colleagues who now had intimate knowledge of each other’s bodies, what gave them the most pleasure, and the sounds they made as they came.
He smiled at her, not deep enough to show his dimple, and even she could feel that they were both struggling to put last night behind them. “Sabrina called to get an update on the Darlington account. I told her we’d give her all the details when we got to the office this afternoon.”
Daisy nodded, grateful that their working relationship was still intact, that there was no tension or strain when it came to business, which was what mattered the most. “That sounds good. I already have some new ideas to pitch to Sabrina, and I’ll come up with a few more design elements on the flight back. Maybe we can brainstorm a bit, too?”
“Sure. I’d be happy to.”
She had so much to do in the next three months before the initial campaign kicked off for the account, and she wanted to make sure everything was top notch, which meant late nights and working weekends . . . and no time to think about how her feelings for this man had changed in a single night together.
Chapter Six
Aiden glanced at his watch for the tenth time in as many minutes. Daisy was late for their eight a.m. session with his brother Dylan to go over the app he’d been contracted to create for Darlington Jewelers, and if there was one thing he knew about Daisy, she was never late. She was always early or on time, fastidiously so, and considering how important this particular meeting was for the account, it concerned him that she hadn’t arrived yet.
Daisy’s team was already seated at the large rectangular table, and in front of the conference room, Dylan had finished setting up his laptop and projector to display all the app’s features on the pull-down screen against the wall. This would be the first time Daisy would be meeting his brother in person, since all of the initial design and building of the app had been by phone or email since hiring Stone Media, who’d come in with the best price for what their client wanted for their target audience for the project.
Dylan’s business had grown by leaps and bounds over the past few years, which had started as a hobby designing gaming apps in college to earn extra money. Eventually he’d branched out into creating lifestyle and social media apps and, most recently, taking on contracts for bigger companies. He’d always been a computer and software nerd, and Aiden was glad that he was doing something he loved since his brother had completely withdrawn after all the shit had gone down with their father. He was doing so well that the Roth Owens Agency was contracting with Stone Media on a more regular basis because he was cost-effective, easy to work with, and dependable.
Before Aiden could look at the time again, his brother came up to where he was standing away from the rest of the people at the conference table. Despite being here for a presentation, Dylan was dressed casually in a pair of khaki pants and a short-sleeve collared shirt. His brother didn’t do suit and tie, and Aiden supposed it was an improvement from his more casual attire of jeans or shorts.
“So, since we have some time to kill while we’re waiting for Daisy, I wanted to ask you why you haven’t been using the Little Black Book app lately.”
Aiden blinked at his brother in confusion. “What?”
“Your app . . . it’s been inactive for close to three months now. You turned off your notifications and haven’t marked any recent hookups.”
His frown was immediate. “How t
he hell would you know that?”
Dylan shrugged nonchalantly, always calm and laid-back. “I’d made some recent changes to the app that were significant, and I was checking for any glitches behind the scenes, so to speak. I wanted to make sure everything was running smoothly before we started selling advertising spots, and it was easier to watch your data and algorithms to spot any potential issues outside of what I could see in code.”
“So, you were spying on me?” Aiden asked incredulously.
His brother had the audacity to roll his eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic. Spying is a bit extreme. I was observing your stats and checking to make sure there weren’t any bugs in the new programming.”
“That’s totally fucked up, Dylan,” he said in a low, irritated voice.
Dylan laughed, completely unfazed by Aiden’s growing annoyance. “Well, if I told you that I was doing it, you probably would have skewed the results because you would have been aware that I was studying your activity, and I wouldn’t have gotten a true account of how the app and coding were working.”
Normally, he wouldn’t give a shit if his brother was tracking his hookup stats, but he’d deliberately turned off the app the day he and Daisy had arrived home from San Francisco, and he hadn’t been with a woman since. It was insane that he’d cut sex out for the past three months, even to him, considering he knew that he and Daisy would never sleep together again.
But for some reason he couldn’t fully explain, he wasn’t ready to tarnish what he’d shared with Daisy by moving on and fucking another woman who meant nothing to him, because being with anyone else right now would be shallow and superficial in comparison. Hooking up with a random woman didn’t appeal to him in the slightest, not when he still couldn’t shake the memories of how Daisy had tasted against his tongue, the perfect way she’d felt moving beneath him, and how easy it had been to just be with her.
Currently, his hand was seeing a lot of action, but no matter how he got himself off, those sessions were always accompanied by thoughts and fantasies of Daisy. Never had any woman consumed his thoughts like she did, but true to their mutual agreement, they’d maintained a professional, respectful relationship at work. With him overseeing certain aspects of the Darlington account, they talked often and managed to keep their conversations focused on business, but every once in a while, one of them would unintentionally let down their guard just enough that they both felt the attraction and desire still present between them.
“So, what’s up?” Dylan persisted, his voice snapping Aiden out of his thoughts of Daisy. “Either you’re way off your game or you’ve met someone who’s caused your dick to be more discriminant. Hard to imagine, but I suppose anything is possible.”
“Neither,” Aiden replied, feeling his jaw clench with aggravation over the fact that his brother was deliberately needling him. “And news flash, asshole, I don’t need your fucking app to get laid.”
The corner of Dylan’s mouth quirked with an amused grin. “Geez, you don’t have to get so defensive. Unless you have something to hide.”
“I don’t have anything to fucking hide,” he said on a near growl. “So knock it off, before I drop you to the floor and you and I end up in a wrestling match in front of my co-workers.” Yeah, even at their ages, they still resolved disputes and issues with a good ol’ brotherly brawl.
God, where the hell was Daisy already? It was almost twenty after eight now, and he withdrew his phone from his pocket to see if she’d responded to his Where are you? text he’d sent a while ago. No reply, which increased his concern, and he pulled up her cell number to give her a call just as she burst through the conference room door, drawing everyone’s attention to her.
“I’m so sorry to keep everyone waiting,” she said on a rush of breath, clearly flustered at being so late. “Rough morning and I overslept.”